Chapter 11#
Chapter 11#
The daylight grew steadily brighter, sunlight spilling over the gray bricks, and the shouts of street vendors at the mouth of the alley wove together into a lively tapestry.
By the time of the Si hour (9-11 AM), lunch was fully laid out in the main hall of the Wen residence.
Wen Zhuo cast a casual glance over it.
Roast duck with crispy skin, shepherd’s purse balls, salt-baked conch with abalone, lamb tongue with pickled ginger, and golden-threaded jujube soup.
He rolled up his sleeves, pinching the handle of a white porcelain spoon, revealing his fair wrist. With extreme restraint, he ladled up some amber-colored soup and slowly brought it to his mouth.
After a moment, he took another spoonful.
Then another.
Before long, the soup bowl was empty.
“My lord.” Liu Qiying finally couldn’t hold back, rolling her eyes dramatically and teasing, “If someone wanted to harm you, they wouldn’t even need to put in effort—just poison your sweets, and you’d swallow it with your eyes closed.”
Wen Zhuo set down his spoon, picked up a handkerchief to wipe the honey residue from his lips, and said, “Then tomorrow, find someone who writes folk pamphlets and have them write that Chancellor Wen loves spicy food and feels like throwing up at the sight of sweets.”
Though he argued back verbally, he obediently took a few bites of each dish in the end, though he ate very slowly.
Jiang Man, on the other hand, wolfed down three bowls of rice in a whirlwind, then let out a long, satisfied burp.
The sun was now nearly at its zenith. She looked down at her shadow, which seemed even shorter and squatter, and asked curiously, “Why are you dawdling over your meal today, my lord?”
The dishes had been reheated twice by now, and Wen Zhuo had already stopped eating. But he remained seated in the main hall, picking up a book and reading it carefully, pretending not to hear Jiang Man’s words.
Liu Qiying smirked and said, “It’s only a quarter of an hour till noon—of course, he’s deliberately waiting for the Fifth Prince.”
“Ridiculous.” A faint crease appeared on the page of the book.
Wen Zhuo hid his face behind the book, his peripheral vision secretly sweeping over the tightly closed courtyard gate outside the hall. Then, as if it were nothing, he rose and returned to his study.
Once inside, he tossed down the book, stared at the clepsydra by his desk for a moment, then raised his index finger to press down on the arrow scale, pushing the rising tip back to the San Ke mark of the Si hour (9:45 AM).
Just then, the door of the Wen residence was knocked on. Liu Qiying, sharp-eared, put down the leftover food and hurried out to greet the visitor.
Shen Zhi had arrived right on time. He wore a silver-gray round-collared robe, the collar embroidered with a half-circle of entwined vine patterns—simple yet not plain, elegant yet not extravagant.
He was still quite thin, his cheeks lacking flesh, but his brows and eyes could not conceal a certain spirited pride.
Liu Qiying immediately shed her usual demeanor, straightened her lapels, lowered her head, and bent to bow. But Shen Zhi, quick-eyed and swift-handed, stopped her.
His voice carried a smile, but the strength in his hand left no room for argument: “Don’t. A bow like that isn’t casually offered to me. Besides, isn’t your Chancellor planning to repay you for that favor anyway?”
It was as if he already knew why he had come. He lifted his eyes and scanned the interior of the estate, searching for someone.
Liu Qiying said, “I really am a rouge thief.”
Shen Zhi replied absently, “I know.”
“Then Your Highness still wants to save me?”
Shen Zhi didn’t see Wen Zhuo, so he turned back and said politely, “You don’t need to thank me. First, you only got into trouble because you were guiding me; second, I’m more than happy to curry favor with your Chancellor; third, my father summoned me because of this, so helping you is really a win-win for me.”
“Mm. Your Highness already knows that the little tune you sang yesterday at the Martial Arts Hall has reached my lord’s ears.”
“Oh?” Shen Zhi was a bit surprised. “It spread that fast? A classic is indeed a classic.”
Liu Qiying: “…” Where is the classic in that?
Shen Zhi’s interest was piqued; he used to have a bit of a microphone hog’s hobby. “Where is your Chancellor? Actually, what I sang for the Emperor yesterday was an adapted version. Later, I’ll sing him the original—just for him.”
“…Your Highness, wait. I have something to explain.”
Shen Zhi was taken aback by her attitude, but Liu Qiying continued, “Back in the day, there was a massive flood in Qianzhou that submerged the farmlands, leaving several villages with no harvest. The men in the villages were forcibly conscripted to repair the levees, but the rations they were supposed to receive were all embezzled. People were dying every day on the dikes. Within half a year, all the men in our village had died out there.”
“We didn’t want to wait for death, so we turned to highway robbery. But we only took three-tenths of the merchants’ goods and never took lives. Those who were robbed knew our plight and didn’t report us. That was until we mistakenly robbed a retainer of the Cao family. Cao Fangzheng sent soldiers to arrest us, and we—a group of women and children—had no strength to resist.”
“He branded us with slave marks, intending to sell us off to various secret brothels to make more money. On the way, I stabbed one of the escorting soldiers and led a band of rouge thieves to flee into Bozhou territory.”
“Actually, we were caught as soon as we entered Bozhou. We thought it was a dead end, but we met Lord Wen.”
At this point, Liu Qiying’s gaze shifted to the flourishing pear tree in the courtyard, and her eyes softened with warmth.
“He ordered us to be registered in the census, reissued household documents, and allowed us to survive in Bozhou under new identities. He even gave me this name. At that time, he took in every refugee who had fled from Qianzhou to Bozhou.”
Shen Zhi’s brow lifted almost imperceptibly.
“Learning from Qianzhou’s misfortune, he built embankments in Bozhou early on to block the Liang River, and following the example of Ximen Bao during the Warring States period, he diverted water for irrigation and improved the saline-alkali soil. All the grain needed during this time was provided by the Bozhou government.”
“Among the refugees, men built dikes in exchange for grain, while women could go to plant tea. When Lord Wen took the imperial exams, he had tasted the Songluo tea produced in Huizhou Prefecture in the palace. That tea is as pale as white pear blossoms and tastes like chewing snow—extremely expensive. He realized that Bozhou’s climate was similar to Huizhou’s, and if they could introduce this tea, though without old trees, selling it at half price could greatly improve people’s livelihoods. The tea fields have been expanding, and we never faced a situation where there was no work to do.”
“I once asked him whether it was worth the risk to save people like us. He said, ‘Whether it’s worth it or not, I’ve already done it. What can hungry people do? No one is born wanting to do evil. If I were in their place, I wouldn’t have done any better.’”
Liu Qiying looked back at Shen Zhi, her eyes steadfast: “Lord Wen never speaks up for himself, but he is absolutely not the idle, iron-hearted person described in those folk pamphlets. In three years in Bozhou, the land grew fertile, the common people lived in peace. When he left, tens of thousands lined the roads, singing his praises and begging him to stay. No matter what outsiders say, in the hearts of Bozhou’s people, he will always be a living Buddha.”
Shen Zhi stood silently, listening. The casual smile in his eyes gradually faded, finally melting into a deep, unfathomable darkness.
These trivial, stubborn traces of his past—parts of his character and spirit—left no mark behind.
So much so that it was impossible to know how his nature had changed, or whether any of what he once was still remained.
“History really is cold and unfeeling.”
So this was the truth about a man reviled as a traitor for the ages—someone had once defended him, favored him, and in those nameless gaps of time, he had been a savior to a region.
Twenty-seven years, reduced to two short pages in the Qian History, accompanied by a remorseful confession, trying to sum up a complex life.
As if he had never been a living, breathing being, but only a broken symbol of treachery, trampled under the feet of historians.
“I’m getting more and more interested in your lord.”
Wen Zhuo had long heard the commotion at the gate. With a calm expression, he pinched the thin pages of his book and read the same line for the eighth time.
A book that usually absorbed him now left him distracted.
He couldn’t quite say whether he should look forward to this meeting or dread it, or whether he should build with Shen Zhi the same kind of connection he had with Shen Chen in his previous life.
After all, he was a man once bitten by a snake, and he couldn’t help but feel wary.
No matter how Shen Zhi behaved now, he was still the son of Emperor Shunyuan. If he ever gained power, would he still be able to see the suffering of the common people as he did today?
But one thing was certain: everyone in the Great Qian imperial family had a deep aversion to male beauty. In this life, he would never let the person he supported discover the lowliness in his heart.
Once again, Wen Zhuo steeled himself mentally. But outside the study, it was still empty.
“……”
He raised his hand and swept the brush pot off the desk.
What slow legs! Seven zhang (~23 meters) and it takes a quarter of an hour to walk!
Liu Qiying happened to lead Shen Zhi out of the doorway just in time to see Wen Zhuo extend two fair, slender fingers from his wide sleeve and deliberately knock the brush pot to the ground, scattering the writing brushes all over the floor.
Liu Qiying, used to it, said, “When he gets impatient, he knows not to push over the ten-tael inkstone.”
Shen Zhi chuckled softly. “Little cat.”
Liu Qiying turned her head and asked, “What did Your Highness say?”
Shen Zhi did not answer.